Needle was Jon's Smile
by Reyavie
Summary: She could walk away. She could. Oh, but her brother's face as he left...


_Author's note: Own nothing at all. Little random piece._

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Jon looked the same. That seemed wrong.

Winterfell had fallen and been reclaimed, he had crossed lands without sun and battled nightmares without end. Surely, something about him must have changed. There was the hair, of course. That one was tied back with a small leather tie, no longer obscuring dark eyes and pale skin. A protection gone. Scars made their appearance here and there; dark scars, visible, slashing over the rugged skin like rivers through mountains. He even dressed differently, black guise and dark fur, standing tall like his father had once stood.

And yet, those weren't the changes that mattered. Arya watched from the darkened threshold as his eyes ran over the crowd swimming through the great Hall; dark, darker and worried, thinking and overthinking every thought because now he was a Commander. Now, he was a Lord and a King and he decided for far more lives than when he had been a child in Winterfell. There was sadness and relief in his expression both, as if he couldn't decide whether to be happy for returning or sad for standing in the midst of so much destruction. Home was Winterfell but Winterfell had changed. Where was Home when Home lacked the walls, the hearth, the pictures and laughter? What was left for him?

What was left for her?

Her heart twitched in her breast in shared pain. The woman placed a hand over it without thinking. She had no idea it could do that anymore. A little poke against the skin followed the gesture. Odd indeed. Did it mean the Faceless Men also felt still? Did it mean she didn't walk too far as one of them? Probably. Was that a good thing?

Her mind hurt as it hadn't for quite a while. Gods help her, the north was dredging up all of her ghosts.

Her thoughts halted as a hand reached for her without her awareness, strong fingers digging into her arm. Arya hadn't even seen the movement or the man approach.

It was the King.

Closer, his eyes seemed even older than they had at a distance. Arya could see he hadn't bothered with a crown or jewelry, keeping himself as unadorned, as _black_ as his former brothers on the Wall.

"Pardon me, my Lady. I thought…" His eyes narrowed slightly, as if there was a particularly difficult puzzle in front of him to deal with. One moment. Two. The woman felt her heart stop. "You were familiar to me."

He _knew_. Did he know? Could he?

She swallowed tightly, trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat and stopped her breathing. How could he know? Her hair was light instead of dark, her eyes hidden beneath a cover of blue instead of the brown which was so much like his. There was no noblewoman's clothing covering her. Just rags and a different woman's face hiding the wolf away. He couldn't know.

He couldn't.

It would not be right.

His hand was still on her arm. Arya looked down at it, noting the long fingers, the tough calluses against her skin. A man's hand. A Commander's hand.

"Forgive me, my Lady." He allowed it to fall to his side.

"There is nothing to forgive, my Lord." The words escaped her, uninspired and ringing true. And yet, he frowned deeper yet again.

"It is just…" Her brother shook his head again, wandered in search of the idea that kept fleeing. He rubbed his forehead tiredly and Arya could swear he had sighed into a glove. "What is your name? I don't remember seeing you here before."

"Nan." The lie slipped onto her lips almost too easily.

"Nan," the King repeated slowly. "We had a Nan here before. It's strange. Little by little we get these pieces back and they…"

"Don't fit."

Just like her, it seemed. She wasn't Arya anymore. She was pieces of Arya stuck together with blood and spit and an armor as thick the stones of their Castle. She was Nan and Mercy and Faceless and all those covered whatever was left of the wolf girl.

His eyes searched for hers again and his smile made her deadened heart twitch once more.

"No. They do not."

It made her want to cry when she was sure she couldn't do such a thing.

Jon smiled once more, nodded at her in a move no King she had ever known would deign to offer the servant she paraded as and moved to leave, abandoning her to her observations.

She could walk away. She could. The False Queen sat on the Iron throne and her father's bones, it laughed at his ghost and thought herself safe when she wasn't. Frey had been safe. The Knight had been safe. She was not and Arya was just the right person to show her such a fact. She could. If she walked away right in that moment.

Oh, but her brother's face as he walked away…

"Jon."

Arya reached for the edges of her magic, digging her fingers into the very final trace of what seemed skin and pulled. Light eyes, dark hair.

The King stopped in his tracks. He didn't speak. He didn't even try to. He stared at her, stared at her face, looked at her traces, lingered on her clothes.

"Jon. It's me. It's Arya"

Her voice didn't tremble. She was sure of it. She was sure it didn't break (even though it sounded like it), that it was even and strong (even though it sounded like a child's), that such a small word could not be spoken in a way such as the one she had heard. How could such a small word exclaim such longing?

"I wasn't good," she whispered. "I could have come earlier but I wasn't good."

No questions. No words. No reaction.

"I couldn't let go. I was a bad person. I hurt people."

Before she could react ( _again, whispered Jagen in her mind, a girl is caught unaware too easily_ ), before she could say how she had killed and murdered and butchered those who had harmed _them,_ arms clamped around her. Arya felt herself pushed against fur, black hair, black clothes and a body so much stronger than hers and the man she didn't know anymore was crushing her against him; laughing and crying, she'd swear. Had no one told him Kings weren't supposed to cry? What was Sansa teaching him in her spare time?

"I missed you." She thought it was him to speak those words but the cadence, it was a woman's. It was hers. It was the truth.

She wasn't Arya anymore. She was pieces stuck together with blood and flame and spit; she was pieces lost and edges broken. But she was still his Arya and he was still her brother. Her Jon, covered in black and crowned in stone and she had missed him more than any words could say.

"You're a Princess now," he whispered into her ear, tightening, tightening until she couldn't breathe. Even then, she tightened harder as she heard the first words since they were both there and happy. "I'm sorry for that." How foolish those words were.

How Jon's.

Arya laughed and cried onto her brother's embrace.


End file.
